Savage About Sobriety March 24, 2023

My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word. - Psalm 119:28 (NIV)

Baggage. I'm NOT talking about the suitcase full of clothes that we take with us on vacation. I'm talking about the bag of emotional pain and hurt we carry around in our heads. I'm talking about those memories we have bottled up inside our hearts that we take the lid off of when things are going a little too well for us and we want to go ahead and feel like crap because we already know how this is gonna end. Does any of this sound familiar? No? How about the hurt we've caused others? or, What about the shame we wake up with because we let our kids down again? You show me a person struggling with addiction and I'll show you a person with more emotional "baggage" than a luggage carousel at the airport.

Whether it's Celebrate Recovery, Reformers Unanimous (RU), Narcotics Anonymous (NA), or Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), the road to recovery involves dealing with the pain we have experienced or the pain we have caused others. In fact, unpacking this baggage is what makes up most of a 12 Step Program. Steps 4-10 to be exact. Hanging on to emotional trauma, regardless of the depth or extent of it, can only cause more problems with our relationships at home, our ability to hold down jobs, or worse, our ability to walk in Faith with a God who will never leave us nor forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:8).

Drugs and alcohol have convinced us that we never have to feel sad, lonely, or pain ever again. Truth is, they only make us feel sadder, lonelier, and in worse pain than we were in before we started using. Dealing with our emotional baggage is not something anyone likes to do. It can be painful. It can be gut-wrenching. It can be sad. But being sad is not the same as being depressed. Sadness is a normal part of our natural emotions that helps us process traumatic events in our life. Addicts are so used to popping a pill or cracking a cold one every time they feel an emotion that makes them uncomfortable or think of a memory they want to forget, that using has become an automatic answer to their problems. We think we are in control of these emotions by suppressing them with drugs and alcohol, but all we are doing is setting ourselves up for failure. I relapsed in 2015 after my oldest daughter's mom passed away from cancer at the age of 36. I didn't have God in my life at the time, so it didn't take long before I decided I was not going to feel the sadness of her death ever again and I started drinking. The drinking led to drugs and the drugs led to harder drugs that eventually caused my overdose last March. I lost 7 years of my life to my addiction, 2.5 of those years were spent in prison, and precious time away from my kids that we will never get back. All because I chose to not deal with the pain of a loss.

I love the above verse from Psalm 119. When King David was sad, he asked God to strengthen him with His Word. All we have to do is ask for His help. Jesus says in Matthew 11:28 (NIV), "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Jesus wants the brokenhearted to come to Him. One of Jesus' ministries has always been to "heal the brokenhearted" (Luke 4:18). Whatever emotional baggage you are carrying around with you, give it to Jesus and let Him take the load off of you. Let Him help you get to a place where you can start dealing with the pain from your past. You can't move past it until you face it head on and deal with it a little at a time. Otherwise, you might lose years to your addiction and possibly even your life. Lay it at the foot of the Cross.